I’ll be honest – I had no idea if Block, Dodge, Parry would sell. Heck, I didn’t even do the project to sell, per se. To me, it was more about, “hey, I’ve been writing about RPG stuff for a while now, and some people seem to like it. It’d be really, really cool if I could make something that people would spare a few euros/dollars for – if only to say that, yes, my writing has some worth”.
Art by Bertdrawsstuff, who also did all the art for Block, Dodge, Parry!
It is for that reason that the reception and sales of BDP have absolutely blown me away.
Now, while the revenue so far has been nothing to sneeze at, it mostly serves as a really cool motivator to keep working on this project (Also, the revenue might be quite nice – it turns out that after Itch fees and U.S. taxes, the actual payout is… way lower, but oh well).
Block, Dodge, Parry is a toolkit, and as such, I aim to keep expanding it. So far, I’ve released two pieces of bonus content:
Finding A Trainer
Skills are an important part of BDP, and with its focus on the natural flow of a living gameworld, organic stories, and foreground development, this means that trainers are important, too. The bonus supplement contains 2 1d20 tables on where you might find a trainer, and what they might require from you in order to provide training.
Dueling
Duels can serve as a fun pastime – or a dramatic climax. The new dueling rules make surviving a duel a challenge for your mind, reflexes, and body.
Plans for the future
I want to keep working on Block, Dodge, Parry. I will keep releasing free bonus content (for smaller, bite-sized ideas), and possibly new chapters/appendices/updates to the main book (for larger ideas). The price of the base game will remain unchanged – so buying it now gets you more future content!
Thanks again for all who have supported BDP so far – it’s honestly been such a joy.
Congrats! It’s funny I think I launched 6613 around the time you launched Block Dodge Parry and was sad that mine was behind yours. I was like, what is this? Then today I was looking for better Carin rules for fighters and it clicked, I understood how awesome it was and bought it today. The rules to make weapons feel unique are sooo great. And the ability to chose how you respond to attacks is just so good. I need to dive into the magic system more but that also looks great. Also can’t wait to try a duel as well. Anyway, best of luck with everything, I’m really enjoying your stuff. I hope to get my local group to switch to Cairn in light of all the OGL stuff going on.
What a lovely comment! 24XX is an amazing system, so I’ll definitely check out 6613. And yeah, I feel like a lot of things came together in it! It’s hard to put under words exactly, but I’d say that the idea of “the fiction is the game, the game is the fiction” really sprung from what I felt was lacking in 5e. Best of luck to you too!
> “the fiction is the game, the game is the fiction”
Yeah I think I know what you mean. I think often in 5e the idea that your whole body+armor was just one HP pool often just didn’t match what was happening in the fiction. In 5e I often we kind of wrapped the fiction around the mechanics, but it was always an awkward fit that took a lot of the realism out of it. That said I’m a very “logic > mechanics” kind of person, but if both work perfectly together that’s the best.
Overall I’m really enjoying the idea that a hammer will feel like a hammer (it smashes in armor but is also heavy) and a javelin feels like it has a chance to sneak between the plates of someone’s armor. There’s just so much there. It’s funny because I play a druid normally but this makes it a lot more fun for those that just “rage and attack” in 5e.
Yeah! To re-use something I wrote on reddit yesterday:
Here’s a thing I’ve discovered recently:
In 5e, the default language in which the game ‘speaks’ is combat. If you were to encounter a group of new foes, you would probably just go for it, roll initiative, and during the fight decide that they might be out of your league and flee. Not fighting can feel like you’re missing out on content – I mean, the Player Handbook is 80% about combat options, your class is about what you can do in combat, so we all talk ‘combat’.
In an OSR game, combat can be very lethal, very quick. So, if you were to encounter a group of new foes, the tension is about avoiding combat, because you know it would probably end bad.
Now, the total tension in both of these scenes might be similar. Heck, the ‘story beats’ are even the same: encounter new foe, but choose to flee. However, the vibe and execution are quite different:
5e invites you to mash your action figures together, and make a retreat when you can’t win the fight.
OSR invites more the vibes of a gunslinger showdown, the tension of a blade not yet drawn.
Don’t know what this says about fun, but I find both to be exciting in their own way.